If Marshall McLuhan were around today to comment on the results of Britain’s referendum about whether to “Remain” or to “Leave” the European Union, no doubt he would offer comments that would be surprising and puzzling. Nevertheless, it is the unexpected quality of McLuhan’s probing remarks (he himself liked to designate his aphorisms with the [...]
One of the biggest mistakes that a student of history can make is to confuse the so-called English “Reformation” with its namesake on the continent. Whereas the Protestant Reformation in Europe was animated by the genuine theological differences that separated those who followed Luther or Calvin from those who accepted the apostolic and ecclesial authority [...]
Joy Davidman is such an unsympathetic figure that one must question the judgment and goodness of C.S. Lewis in choosing to marry her. Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman, ed. by Don W. King (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009) I’ve spent the better part of my career as a historian and a [...]
A lot of good books have come out of the West. They have been written by men and by women and may be read by girls and by boys. It is no wonder that so many appear on John Senior’s list of the thousand or so good books that youngsters should read before they get [...]
The first function of the founders of nations, after the founding itself, is to devise a set of true falsehoods about origin—a mythology—that will make it desirable for nationals to continue to live under common authority, and, indeed, make it impossible for them to entertain contrary thoughts. Ordinarily the founding, being the less subtle of [...]
Was the American War of Independence a revolution? It was certainly not the sort of political and social overturn that “revolution” has come to signify. Was the American War of Independence a revolution? In the view of Edmund Burke and of the Whigs generally, it was not the sort of political and social overturn that [...]
Lord, Remember Me O Thou, from Whom all goodness flows, I lift my soul to Thee; In all my sorrows, conflicts, woes, Good Lord, remember me. If on my aching, burdened heart, My sins lie heavily, Thy pardon grant, Thy peace impart; Good Lord, remember me. […]
Writing with all the Romantic appreciation of the dialectic of opposites and polarities, Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” Whitman and the Romantics expressed eloquently and frequently the profound observation that the essence of life is polarity, opposition, and contradiction, and that [...]
In a noble enterprise, the people of my small Catholic parish in the poor part of town are trying to build a beautiful church. The church itself echoes the simple dignity of early Italian Romanesque, monastic architecture. From a closed church in Massachusetts, we have salvaged a complete set of forty-seven stained-glass windows, plus a [...]
Euthanasia and physician-assisted death is a topic much in the news these days. After the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent ruling, the Canadian government is busy with legislation overseeing such practices. Perhaps the viewpoint of an ancient school of philosophical thought, Stoicism, may aid contemporary reflections on the matter of physician-assisted suicide, especially since such [...]
In January 2011, an intriguing announcement arrived in my email inbox. The upcoming issue of The New Yorker was to contain “Social Animal” by David Brooks, The New York Times columnist and guru of middle-class American life. I could hardly wait to read “how the new sciences of human nature can help make sense of [...]
After over one hundred years, it continues to be almost impossible for us to ask certain basic questions about the role of Abraham Lincoln in the formation of a characteristically American politics. At every appropriate point of inquiry, the Lincoln myth obtrudes. Since 1865 no one has denied the extraordinary purchase of that imaginative construct upon the idiom and [...]
Harry Earhart In the summer of 1998, I had a wonderful phone call, mostly by accident. The University of Texas-San Antonio needed a historian immediately. They actually called my wife to ask her, and we were in between our wedding and our honeymoon. Actually, it was the day—yes, I mean the actual day—immediately [...]
The surprise victory for “leave” in the referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union has been hailed as a win for national sovereignty. It also has been lambasted as a sign of racism and xenophobia among the English and Welsh—though not among the overwhelmingly socialist Scots who voted “remain.” Stock markets and currency exchanges [...]